Language or dialect? the history of a conceptual pair
Van Rooy, Raf,author.
"This book provides a historiographic study of the distinction between language and dialect, a puzzle which has long fascinated linguists and laypeople alike. It offers a comprehensive account of the intriguing and complex history of the language-dialect pair, and shows that its real origins can be found in sixteenth-century humanist scholarship. The book begins with a survey of the prehistory of the language/dialect distinction in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Raf Van Rooy then provides a detailed investigation of the emergence, establishment, and development of the conceptual pair during the early modern period, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, when linguistic diversity was first studied in depth. Finally, the much-debated and ambiguous fate of the language/dialect opposition in modern linguistics is explored: although a number of earlier ideas were adopted by later scholars, many linguists today question the notion of a seemingly arbitrary and subjective distinction between language and dialect"--
"This book provides a historiographic study of the distinction between language and dialect, a puzzle which has long fascinated linguists and laypeople alike. It offers a comprehensive account of the intriguing and complex history of the language-dialect pair, and shows that its real origins can be found in sixteenth-century humanist scholarship. The book begins with a survey of the prehistory of the language/dialect distinction in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Raf Van Rooy then provides a detailed investigation of the emergence, establishment, and development of the conceptual pair during the early modern period, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, when linguistic diversity was first studied in depth. Finally, the much-debated and ambiguous fate of the language/dialect opposition in modern linguistics is explored: although a number of earlier ideas were adopted by later scholars, many linguists today question the notion of a seemingly arbitrary and subjective distinction between language and dialect"--
Includes bibliographical references and index
A dive into the prehistory of the conceptual pair -- The exception to the rule : Lingua and idioma in Roger Bacon's thought -- From dogs and hounds to languages and dialects : The conceptual pair in Conrad Gessner's work -- Lingua and dialectus : From synonymy to contrast -- Hellenism, standardization, and info-lust : The genesis of the conceptual pair in context -- Space and nation : Greek definitions transformed -- Aristotle's legacy : Substance, accidents, and mutual intelligibility -- A subjective touch : Language beats dialect -- The conceptual pair and language history : Language generates dialects -- Consolidation by elaboration : Drawing the balance -- The conceptual pair in transition : The case of Georg Stiernhielm -- Putting the conceptual pair on the scholarly agenda : The orientalist Albert Schultens -- Lexicostatistics avant la lettre : The historian Johann Christoph Gatterer and the conceptual pair -- Classes of variation : How do languages and dialects differ? -- Between systematization and rationalization : The conceptual pair through the Enlightenment lens -- From Jones to Gabelentz : Silent adoption and renewed suspicion -- Schuchardt the iconoclast -- From Saussure to 1954 : Structuralism and the language/dialect distinction -- Mutual intelligibility : The number one criterion? -- Between two extremes : Generative and sociolinguistic interpretations -- A gentle goodbye? Dialect stripped for parts -- Language, dialect, and the general public-or how not to popularize knowledge -- Language and dialect between past and future : Terminological success, conceptual failure.
Dialectology
Dialectology